Squirrels

I stopped feeding the birds two years ago. It wasn’t so much feeding the birds that was the problem. All I was really doing was feeding the squirrels. They jumped up onto the squirrel proof feeders, they jumped down onto them, they flew sideways onto them, they cut them down, broke them open or just banged them around until all the seed had come out. Birds really weren’t involved at all.

I had squirrel baffles and long clothesline way up in trees and away from branches. I had them attached to perfectly vertical sides of my house. I tried fishing line, supposedly squirrels can’t see it to climb down or cut. I varied the seed. Perhaps there was a type of seed squirrels wouldn’t bother with.

No such luck. I grew to hate squirrels. I was wasting my time and my money.

I would like to feed the birds this winter and, at least, minimize the theft and destruction of the squirrels. Any suggestions??

Ole Skiffer

When Jessica went off to college I assumed Martha and I would spend much of our free time running around the house buck naked. But as that dear, sweet lady said to me at the time, “Think again, McDuff”.

So I decided to build a small, open motor boat called a skiff. I got plans from a fellow on the west coast from an ad in Wooden Boat magazine. Martha and I went to Somerville, MA to Boulter Plywood and bought all the mahogany, marine plywood and oak I would need. It cost me $500. The year was 1989. We had to drive home to Milford, NH on back roads going slowly so the long sheets of plywood wouldn’t sail off the roof racks of the truck.

I put it together, mostly, over the next year then trucked it to the Cape house. I left it, unpainted, in the back yard and went looking for an outboard motor at the winter boat show in Boston. That next summer we bought a trailer and I finished the skiff.

Here it is, twenty years later, sitting on my mooring on the Bass River today.

Some Pig

I spotted a spider in her web in my barn yesterday. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a bigger one. And the web is unusual, outlining the spider exactly in the middle.

Because of the light and the angle, and because I didn’t want to get really, really close, it was tough to take a picture.

The temperatures are dropping at night so I don’t imagine it will last too much longer. At least that is my secret hope. Certainly I don’t intend to wrestle it to the ground and jump on it!

Maybe I could catch it in a can and keep it as my new pet. It’s certainly big enough!

Update on Pears

I cut up some of my harvest of Seckel pears from the tree outside the kitchen door and sautéed them in white wine with three boneless chicken breasts. After the chicken was cooked, I reduced the wine and pears into a sweet sauce and topped the chicken with it. Not bad.

Yesterday I peeled and cut up some pears and added a touch of good black Jamaican rum to them and then made a banana bread using my mother’s recipe plus the pears. It was sensational, perhaps the best banana bread I’ve ever made.

Bed Rest

I'm convinced, for me at least, the torment of the damned is being told not to do anything at all for 10 days or 6 weeks or whatever.

I have been reading a lot and watching movies on TV. I suppose I could clean the house except I did that just before going to the hospital in case anyone had to come in while I was away.

I do cook, but using only one hand limits my range of dishes. And since I can't exercise I guess I'll just blow up to Enormous.

I make lists of things I'll plant next summer and repairs I need to make on the house. I'm going to do some Internet shopping today for the Holidays. I'll send some thank you notes.

My brother John came to visit. He drove me to the library, the auto insurance agency, the Registry and the bank. I was told not to drive so at least, with him driving, I could get some errands done.

But how do you determine if something weighs 5 pounds so you don't pick it up? How exactly are you supposed to get it on the scale in the first place?

Crickets in the house, mums for sale

I have been attempting to ignore fall completely this year. The months of April, May, June and the first half of July were so awful, rain, cold and more rain, that we deserve an additional stretch of decent summer weather.

But despite what I feel entitled to the crickets have started coming into the house and keeping me up at night. Who came up with this business about not killing the little bastards? Carrying them out on a tissue is a pain. Why do they come in at all. I found one the other day trapped in an antique porcelain chamber pot on the porch. Did he think the acoustics would be better from there?

And the super market has mums for sale by the hundreds. Acres of orange and purple and brownish red. I suppose I’ll have to break down and get a couple. And a stupid pumpkin.

I refuse to turn the heat on in the house. I have been chilly a couple of mornings but turning heat on is admitting defeat.

I’m not done with summer, darnit. I still need ten clear beach days, five good boating-fishing days, three more hot hiking-camping days and a big barbeque evening with a red sky in the west.

Who’s in charge of this?

Feeling better

So, I have been feeling sort of lousy for awhile. Last week I felt especially so. Really quite poorly. Every time I did anything, however minor, I had to sit down, rest, take deep breathes, bring feeling back to my arms, stop sweating. I wondered if I would feel better if I went shopping for something new.

Friday, I had an interior door in the garage that I had just painted with the finish coat. I carried it in to the house (sat down), hung it, (sat down), put the hardware back on (sat down) and decided I had a problem. And it wasn't just going to go away.

Saturday, my brothers and sister-in-law were visiting. Cal and I moved some furniture around. We carried a piece out of the wine cellar to be cleaned. I went onto the roof of the barn to grease the wind vane which was making a terrible noise as it turned in the wind. I spent a lot of time sitting and resting.

Sunday, I went food shopping because the thought was dawning (over Marblehead) that I might not be able to after I presented myself at the hospital, assuming that was necessary. I cleaned the house. I decided to sleep on it and if I still felt poorly in the morning I would call the doctor. I don't want to present myself with a list of complaints only to find out nothing is wrong!

Monday morning I felt lousy yet again. I called the doctor's office. They said someone would get back to me. About an hour later a lady called and said go to the hospital. I suggested I drive to one in Boston. She suggested I go to the nearest emergency room. I did.

I felt foolish at the reception desk because I wasn't feeling all that lousy at that moment. They took me right in and did an EKG. A nurse came and added large pads to my chest in case they had to paddle me. She said I had a stage three heart block. I was not to move and, no, I could not get up to go to the bathroom. They gave me aspirin and nitro. They fixed up an intravensus thing and called the cardiologist.

She came and told me the same thing. She explained that the electrical signal that goes from the atrium to the ventricle was no longer going to the ventricle. The atrium was beating but the ventricles, not so much.

She said I needed a pacemaker. Ordinarily I do not buy expensive appliances on short notice and without reading up on the various models in Consumer Reports. And I just bought a wide screen TV so my budget was a little overextended. And I rarely buy electrical appliances that require a company representative be present when the appliance is installed!

The cardiologist said tomorrow morning wouldn't be too soon. I felt pressured to buy. I wondered what Martha Ellen would recommend. I called Jessica to run the idea by her.

The next morning (yesterday) I was operated on and had a very nice Medtronic model installed under my left clavicle. I spent another uncomfortable night in cardiac care and came home today. My heart now beats at a steady 60 beats per minute, rather that 34 or 35, and I feel less lousy. I'm told I'll feel much better shortly but now I'm wondering if I did the right thing.

After all, this device is only making my heart beat 90% of the time. I probably could have waited a little while longer and looked for a sale.

The Pear Harvest

There is a very old pear tree outside the kitchen door. Very old. In the last 40 years, Martha and I mostly ignored it except to rake up the fallen pears that the squirrels and birds hadn't eaten.

The pears are small and hard. This year I cleared all the brush and heavy vines from in and around the tree. It has produced a bumper crop for a very old, fairly small tree. The pears are Seckel pears. These trees were first introduced in 1800 and soon became a household staple.

The pears last well into the winter. They are not for eating but for baking. Because they last so well, a family with one of these trees could bake the fruit at a time when few neighbors would have had any fruit at all.

I have put this first harvest, about eight lunch bags full, in the root cellar to ripen. I'll let you know what happens.

Driving Ms. Daisy

Recently Massachusetts has been considering requiring a driving test for people over the age of 85 after a series of terrible accidents involving apparently oblivious elders. If we were going to be realistic, rather than politic, remember older folks vote in higher percentages than any other age group, we would probably require driving tests for anyone over 70.

But, at the same time, 16 and 17 year old kids have more car wrecks percentage-wise than any age group. No one should drive an automobile until they reach the age of 18. Period, end of story. Have you seen some of these 16 year old drivers? Oh my God, as they might say. Some adults, delighted to stop driving them around, will argue that they have a job or a second career in football or something that requires a car.

Well, old people with bad eyesight and no hearing and that damn left blinker on all the time have lives too. That doesn’t mean any of them should drive.

Think of the benefits if we make kids wait until they are 18. High schools won’t need parking lots bigger than the Mall. School buses might actually have some high schoolers on them instead of running around empty every day. Fewer cars will be on the road polluting the air and making the rest of us late for work. More people will use public transportation. More kids will live to maturity, get old and have to stop driving again and use public transportation.

It’s a win, win, win.

Neither snow nor ice nor dark of night

Have you been to a United States Post Office recently? When my wife Martha and I moved onto our boat some years ago we got a Post Office box and kept it even after we came ashore. So I have been watching the comings and goings at the post office each week since.

I am not at all surprised that they are 7 billion dollars in debt this year. Most of the people I see at the post office are either elderly or first generation immigrants. There can’t be a big profit margin on sending aspirin to Honduras or books to the grandchildren.

Business people, young adults, even some of us oldsters have found other ways to communicate. I think the future for this so called “snail mail” is dim indeed. And on top of lost revenue, they are still delivering mail to every little hamlet in America six days a week.

I support moving to five day delivery now and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was reduced further in years to come. Federal Express doesn’t go everywhere and certainly doesn’t go there five times each week. UPS has creamed the best markets with the biggest volume so what is left?

We may be witnessing the end of something here, like the Pony Express and the telegraph.